Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Speaking at "One World Travel Mart" in San Francisco on September 29th

I'll be kicking off the San Francisco travel show at OneWorld Travel Mart with the opening keynote on How to Travel Around the World on Saturday morning, September 29th, from 11 a.m. to noon, followed by a booksigning at the Books, Inc. onsite travel bookstore from noon to 1 p.m. I'll be at the expo again to sign books on Sunday, September 30th, from 11:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. The doors open at 11 a.m. on Saturday, with my talk starting immediately, so be there a few minutes early and head straight for the main stage.

I'll be followed on the main stage on Saturday by, among others, Pauline Frommer ("When to Splurge and When to Scrimp") and the hosts of the hit public television travel show, Grannies on Safari.

Travel expos have had a surprisingly rocky history in San Francisco, at least as a commercially viable proposition. It's not that San Franciscans and people from throughout the Bay Area don't travel: San Francisco has the highest per capita spending on international travel of major cities in the USA. But that's driven in significant part by high trans-Pacific airfares paid by Asian-Americans to visit friends and family abroad, rather than by what's conventionally thought of as tourism (even if most of the US visitors to the Philiippines, Taiwan, and various other places are "friends and family" visitors).

Travel is a global phenomenon, of course, but how, where, when, and why people travel are sometimes very local local cultural phenomena. I suspect that patterns of travel by people who live in the Bay Area are different from the US mainstream in ways that aren't fully appreciated by most travel marketers who look at less granular travel demographics, and see only a big picture of "California" travellers that lumps San Franciscans with Angelenos.

OneWorld Travel Mart promises a focus on travel that respects and engages with local physical and cultural environments. I'm happy to have the chance to help kick that off, and look forward to seeing many of you on September 29th at the Concourse in San Francisco.

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble." (U.S. Constitution)

"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

"Liberty of movement is an indispensable condition for the free development of a person." (United Nations Human Rights Committee)